Bryan Steward, who lives with Becker muscular dystrophy, is hiking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, and he just checked in with us to update us on his progress. Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray, two other Camino hikers whose film I’ll Push You will be released in a one-night only screening at select theaters nationwide on November 2 and will benefit MDA, respond to Bryan with memories from their own journey.

Monkol Lek, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, both lives with and studies limb girdle muscular dystrophy. He received a research grant from MDA to improve the diagnosis of rare muscle diseases, and this fall he will open his own lab at Yale.

Ray Spooner, a certified nurse midwife who has ushered thousands of babies into the world, took the Ice Bucket Challenge in summer of 2014 to raise awareness about ALS. At the time, ALS “was just of jumble of letters to us,” said Ray’s wife of 33 years, Rae. Soon though, those letters would take on a . . .